Centre Cuts Excise Duty, Petrol Price Reduce by Rs 9.5, Diesel by Rs 7

NEW DELHI: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the Centre is reducing the Central excise duty on petrol by Rs 8 per litre and on diesel by Rs 6 per litre. With this, the price of petrol will go down by Rs 9.5 per litre and of diesel by Rs 7 per litre, she added.

It will have a revenue implication of around Rs 1 lakh crore/year for the government, said Sitharaman. She also exhorted all state governments, especially the states where the reduction wasn't done during the last round (November 2021), to also implement a similar cut and give relief to the common man.

In another important announcement, the Union Finance Minister said the Centre will this year give a subsidy of Rs 200 per gas cylinder (up to 12 cylinders) to over nine crore beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY).

This will help our mothers and sisters and will have a revenue implication of around Rs 6100 crore a year, said Sitharaman.

She said the government is also reducing the customs duty on raw materials and intermediaries for plastic products where the country's import dependence is high. This will result in a reduction of cost of final products, she added. "Similarly we are calibrating customs duty on raw materials & intermediaries for iron & steel to reduce their prices. Import duty on some raw materials of steel will be reduced. Export duty on some steel products will be levied," she further said.

The Union Finance Minister further said that measures are being taken up to improve the availability of cement and through better logistics to reduce the cost of cement.